May 08, 2008
Never play on railway tracks
This week I passed the halfway mark in Hacking Timbuktu. Writing is very part time so it's taking a while, but 25000 words is a nice milestone all the same.
Most researchy things can be answered by Google these days, but here's one I've given up on. I'm sure somebody out there knows...
Are all railway lines 'live' or just some?
Does track have to be 'live' for a train to run on it?
If you step on 'live' track, do you always get electrocuted?
Would the track next to the platforms at Clapham Junction railway station be live?
Thanks.
Posted by sahelsteve at 10:37 PM
February 21, 2008
Hacking Timbuktu taster
Extract from a work in progress - Hacking Timbuktu - a parkour and hacking fest set in London and Timbuktu.
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At the point where the bridge crossed the embankment walk, Danny Temple stopped, stood up on the rail, swung his arms and jumped. The time in the air, 'hang-time' as his teacher called it, was as euphoric as ever.
The huge antique lamppost did not even sway when Danny landed on it. He adjusted his grip, slid down, landed lightly on the concrete footpath and ran. Pedestrians on the bridge gasped in admiration. Adrenalin coursed through Danny's body. Obstacles stretched out in front of him, all of them surmountable.
The embankment walk is parkour paradise - along its length are walls, railings, steps, hedges, bollards and trees. Open your mind to parkour vision; flow like water over your course. Kong vault, dash vault, tic-tac, kash vault, cat pass, gap jump, dismount, drop. Your will chooses your path, your feeling guides you, your energy propels you.
Parkour is not so very different from hacking. The traceur and the hacker both require special techniques, special vision. Both move freely to surpass the barriers erected by man to enclose and restrict. The electron jungle of cyberspace and the concrete jungle of the city are both there for the exploring - there for the overcoming. As far as Danny is concerned, parkour and hacking are about one thing only: freedom.
Danny resists any big gap jumps on the embankment path. Big jumps mean hard landings so you need to dissipate the shock with a forward roll - left forearm, upper back, lower back, right foot - 'la roulade' as his teacher calls it. An important technique but hardly laptop-friendly. Today the smaller, more technical jumps will have to do.
He is approaching Battersea High Street. He runs full pelt towards the apartment block on the corner, kicks up off the wall, reaches for the railing of a first-floor balcony, pulls himself up, hops onto the rail, precision jumps onto a fire-escape and heads for the roof.
Urban monkey. Traceur extraordinaire. Master of all I survey. I stand on the roofs of Battersea High Street and before me stretches half a mile of concrete, walls, rails and chimneys. Chelsea Harbour down to my left, London Eye away to my right. How many days have I run this roof, and in how many different ways? How many nights has my dream self flowed across the city skyline, swan dived over chimney stacks, cat jumped from one skyscraper to the next? How many mornings have I pulled on my trainers and felt the dizzy thrill of freedom? I'm alive and I'm coming out to play!
Danny sets his stopwatch and runs across the roofs, vaulting the low walls which separate one flat from the next. If martial arts teach you fight, parkour teaches you flight - an efficient way of evading pursuers and moving smoothly over obstacles in your path. Kong vault, dash vault, tic-tac, kash vault, cat pass, gap jump, dismount, drop. Danny runs quickly and silently, imagining, just for kicks, that he is being pursued.
Little does he know, he is.
Posted by sahelsteve at 05:45 PM
December 18, 2007
Mosque Climbing
Charlie is back in England for a wedding this week. So a big shout out to EMMA AND SIMON who are getting married on Saturday. Congratulations! (And Charlie, please come back in time for Christmas!)
I'm staying in Ouaga to get some writing done while Charlie's away. These are the first writing days I've had since getting back to Africa, and I'm enjoying them very much. Finished the last tweaks to 'Sophie and the Pancake Plot' (hooray, hooray, the trilogy is complete) and resuming work now on 'Hacking Timbuktu' - the hacking/parkour/treasure hunting African adventure.
You know those mud-brick West African mosques with the sticks poking out of the minarets (the sticks serve as scaffolding for annual repairs)? Whenever I see one I think 'That would make a great location for a chase scene!' What I relief, I finally get the opportunity to write that scene. In fact, the book kicks off with it.
We had some visitors from New Zealand a couple years back - two fifty-something ladies - who talked about a time they climbed up onto the roof of one of the most famous mosques in Mali (Bankass) and preached from the top. Oh dear, not the most sensitive way to go about interfaith dialogue, but quite a striking image nonetheless. And needless to say, they attracted quite a crowd!
I know there is a current trend for Urban Exploration (examination of the normally unseen or off-limits parts of human civilization) in Europe and the States. Anyone out there ever shinned up a minaret? Or, for that matter, a steeple?
Posted by sahelsteve at 03:06 PM
June 26, 2007
Sausage dogs, Whistler's Mother and Timbuktu
Have you ever given a speech on a topic that you know absolutely nothing about?
Over dinner last Friday night the conversation got onto this subject, and it reminded me of Alexander McCall-Smith's wonderful novel The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs, which is the only book I have ever started again straight after reading it the first time. The book gets its name from the scene in the opening chapter where the pompous philologist Professor Dr. Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld travels to America to talk about his book 'Irregular Portuguese Verbs' and instead finds himself introduced to the audience as an expert on sausage dogs. Too proud to admit ignorance, he ad libs a speech. Read it - you will cry with laughter.
Mr Bean aficionados may remember a similar scene in Bean: the Movie. On a trip to America Mr Bean finds himself mistaken for an art expert and coerced into giving a speech on Whistler's masterpiece 'A Portrait of the Artist's Mother' - a speech so simple and touching that it earns him a standing ovation.
My total knowledge of the repair and archiving of ancient manuscripts could be written on a piece of confetti. So this evening I was surprised to receive invitations to Northwestern University and ISITA (Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa) to talk on the subject 'My Work with Manuscripts'. About a month ago I wrote to the director of the Timbuktu Manuscripts Project asking for help with my research for 'The Timbuktu Enigma', and although I did specify that I write fiction, this detail must have been overlooked. Nonetheless, I am thrilled to be hailed as an eminent archivist of Islamic writings.
What do you think? Should I accept the invitation to America and join Mr Bean and Professor von Igelfeld in the 'Winging It' hall of horrors? Or should I start writing my groom's speech instead?
Posted by sahelsteve at 06:50 AM
June 11, 2007
Africa: not all doom and Joseph Conrad
Amanda Craig, writing in the Saturday Times, comments on how Africa has recently become "the most fashionable setting for film, and now for children's fiction. Perhaps it took the delightful Alexander McCall-Smith's The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series to remind us that the continent doesn't have to be all doom and Joseph Conrad. It can also be a place of modern adventure."
I loved writing The Yellowcake Conspiracy so I have started another adventure story set in Africa. The Timbuktu Enigma will be about two teenage boys, Omar (a garibou in Mali) and Danny (a computer hacker in Battersea), brought together by the discovery of an ancient Timbuktu manuscript. The manuscript describes the biggest heist in African history: eleven tonnes of gold nuggets from Mansa Musa's 1342 pilgrimage convoy. Omar and Danny set out on a quest to unearth the stolen treasure, but equally hot on the trail is a powerful marabout and a family of London mobsters. Noice.